When Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama makes his acceptance speech Thursday as the grand finale to his party's convention, he hopes to draw at least 76,000 supporters to Denver's Invesco Field to cheer him on.

As the late Frank Hague might have said: Is that all?

Hague, the famously powerful and infamously corrupt mayor of Jersey City from 1917 to 1947 and a Democratic political boss whose clout reached into the White House, probably would have been appalled at such a paltry turnout.

Seventy-six years ago, Hague turned out an estimated 100,000 people to cheer and sing the praises of New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic Party's newly knighted presidential nominee, as he launched his national campaign in -- of all places -- Sea Girt.

The Aug. 27, 1932, rally on the grounds of the National Guard training center brought national attention to the tiny seaside community, which at the time boasted it was "the Summer Capital of New Jersey." It earned Hague the awe of politicians, the press -- and, most of all, Roosevelt -- for his ability to turn out a crowd on demand.

The rally was actually the second of three huge political events Hague conducted at Sea Girt over a 12-year span to demonstrate his political power statewide and nationally.

On Aug. 25, 1928, 80 years ago Monday, Hague turned out at least 80,000 people to cheer another New York governor, Al Smith, as he also kicked off his presidential campaign. And that was just a warm-up for Hague. On Aug. 23, 1940, as a way to show his political clout was not slipping, he rolled out a crowd estimated at more than 150,000 to launch the Democratic gubernatorial campaign of Charles Edison, son of inventor Thomas A. Edison.

Author and New Jersey historian Joseph G. Bilby of Wall recounts the rallies, and the period from 1906 to 1941, when New Jersey governors summered at the "Little White House" in the Monmouth County town, in his new book, "Sea Girt, New Jersey: A Brief History," published by The History Press. Bilby is also assistant curator of the National Guard Militia Museum, which stands where the rallies occurred.

"Franklin D. Roosevelt began his inexorable climb to worldwide fame in Sea Girt," Bilby said in an interview.

Hague, who was vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1924 to 1949, backed Smith for the presidential nomination in 1928 and again in 1932. When Roosevelt won the nomination, Hague, to show he was still the Democrat to deal with in New Jersey, promised the nominee national headlines if he opened his campaign with a massive rally in Sea Girt. When Roosevelt, who personally disliked Hague, agreed, the mayor pulled out all the stops.

On the day of the rally, thousands of Depression-era public employees and their families, each bearing a free box lunch and a dime, boarded 100 chartered trains and 50 buses and set off on a free ride to the Sea Girt sunshine.

Roosevelt's motorcade was met at the Jersey City end of the Holland Tunnel by little girls bearing bouquets. The motorcade then proceeded through the Democratic bastions of Jersey City, Newark and Elizabeth, where cheering crowds lined the streets, and on to Hague's summer home in Deal. From there, Roosevelt and Hague motored to the Little White House, actually a 40-room Georgian mansion, where they lunched with Gov. A. Harry Moore.

'ROW WITH ROOSEVELT'
As they dined, the crowd on the nearby parade ground was entertained by stunt pilots and fireworks. Vaudeville vocalists led them in repeatedly singing "Row, Row, Row with Roosevelt," the candidate's campaign song. State troopers, Jersey City police and National Guardsmen attempted crowd control.

Then Roosevelt took the stage, with the 56-year-old Hague -- unsmiling in a wool suit and vest in the August heat -- beside him. The candidate attacked Republican President Herbert Hoover and drew loud cheers when he vowed to end Prohibition.

"From a New Jersey point of view, this was a turning point for Hague. The rally absolutely overwhelmed Roosevelt and the turnout absolutely convinced him Hague was a powerful figure in the New Jersey Democratic Party," said author and historian Thomas Fleming, a Jersey City native. "Roosevelt made a deal with Hague that from then on, assuming he won, Hague would be the guy he dealt with in New Jersey."

As a reward for the rally and his overwhelming support in helping Roosevelt carry New Jersey in the November election, Hague gained control of millions of dollars of Work Projects Administration aid and thousands of jobs. This led, for example, to the construction of Jersey City Medical Center, Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital and Roosevelt Stadium.

Hague's support of Smith was not as rewarding. As Hague's lieutenants brought in at least 80,000 people aboard more then 50 chartered trains, a state trooper in a biplane observed traffic jams for 30 miles around and radioed the locations to the ground. It was the first time an airplane was used for traffic control.

Although the rally was described at the time as the "greatest throng ever gathered in New Jersey," it failed to help Smith carry the state, and he lost the White House to Hoover. On the same day as the rally and a few miles to the north, evangelist Billy Sunday told a gathering of Protestants at Ocean Grove that there were three reasons not to support Smith: He was a "Tammyite, a Catholic and wet."

Hague was at the top of his game for the 1940 rally for gubernatorial candidate Charles Edison.

"Never was the showmanship of Mayor Frank Hague so manifest as in this day's outpouring of a crowd estimated at 150,000 to 200,000," the New York Times reported.

"Hague could produce the vote," Bilby said. "His organization was brilliant. He really deserves a lot of credit, although he has a bad reputation today. He was the original New Jersey boss. Before Springsteen, there was Hague."